Ilya Sutskever, chief data scientist and co-founder of OpenAI, has announced his decision to move on from the company. In 2023, Sutskever was reportedly one of the members of the OpenAI board who fired Sam Altman from the company. However, Altman returned a week later. He said that he would announce about what he plans to do next in some time.
“After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI. The company’s trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous, and I’m confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial under the leadership of Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Mira Murati and now, under the excellent research leadership of
Jakub Pachoki. It was an honor and a privilege to have worked together, and I will miss everyone dearly. So long, and thanks for everything. I am excited for what comes next — a project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time,” he said on a public post on social media platform X.
Sam Altman, while adding that he was sad about this development, stated that Open AI would not be what it is without Sutskever. “Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways. This is very sad to me; Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend. His brilliance and vision are well known; his warmth and compassion are less well known but no less important,” said Altman.
Sutskever was formerly one of the six board members of the non-profit entity which controls OpenAI. “OpenAI would not be what it is without him. Although he has something personally meaningful he is going to go work on, I am forever grateful for what he did here and committed to finishing the mission we started together. I am happy that for so long I got to be close to such genuinely remarkable genius, and someone so focused on getting to the best future for humanity,” added Altman.
Sutskever has made several major contributions to the field of deep learning. He will now be succeeded by Jakub Pachoki as the chief data scientist at OpenAI. “Jakub is going to be our new Chief Scientist. Jakub is also easily one of the greatest minds of our generation; I am thrilled he is taking the baton here. He has run many of our most important projects, and I am very confident he will lead us to make rapid and safe progress towards our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits everyone,” stated Altman.
